How can you get the word out without spending too much?


It's Independents Day. What, you don't have at least fifty grand ready to drop on marketing? If you did, you'd be checking the websites of the big integrated marketing agencies right now. Instead you're here, looking at an independent Creative Director who can develop a great-looking website or brochure for a fraction of the cost. When you hire a large full-service agency, you're paying for their overhead. When you work with various high-quality independent professionals, you're only paying for the work that you need. 'Nuff said.

Marketing a la Carte. When you have a retainer with a marketing firm, you're constantly spending, but how do you really know you're getting your money's worth over time? And why is it you end up paying extra for some services anyway? It's easier to control and monitor costs when you pay project by project, with up-front estimates. Between projects, and during lean periods, you can simply save your money.

Printing Economics 101. Say you're planning on doing a campaign of three direct mail pieces, or one piece each for different audience segments. You don't have to send all three out at the same time, but printing them all at the same time will save a bundle. Also, you can get smaller quantities of Variable Data Printing quite reasonably, with creative customization or personalization for carefully targeted lists. Plus you get full color at no extra cost. When it comes to printing, smart planning really pays off.

It Pays to Recycle. After a web designer has developed a number of websites, it can be much quicker--and economical--to adapt one of those previous sites to your specific needs, vs. building a new site from scratch. The message, colors, and pictures are all unique to you; only the structure remains the same. Who would know?

Offline to Online. These days, you can also save money on printing and design by developing smaller brochures, with less pages. Print is great for getting in people's faces, and luring them with key benefits and visuals. But instead of including piles of details like we used to, we can just include a series of topic-specific URLs or QR codes, to drive people to all the details that are already on your website. And when prices and other ever-changing info are sitting on your site, you won't have to re-print as often to keep your print stuff current.

Some People Just Aren't Interested. At one time, you had to pay to put your message in front of everyone, in order to get to the few who just might buy. But with online Pay Per Click advertising, you only pay when someone is interested enough to click on your ad. Then once you capture their info, you can focus your print and email follow-up efforts and offers only on those who are actively looking for what you're selling.

In Praise of Little Committees. What factor determines whether a marketing project will be quick and inexpensive or costly and never-ending? This may surprise you, but it's the size of the group that's responsible for review, revision and approval. With one or two people in charge, the marketing piece can easily be created to match their expectations, and the revision phase tends to go smoothly. But with a big committee of stakeholders weighing in, you'll find that everyone has an opinion. And since every opinion is different, wrangling a consensus can be so lengthy and gut-wrenching for all involved, the project ends up taking twice as long as expected...which means it ends up costing twice as much. Happens all the time.


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